Egypt: Mahmoud Abou Zeid, Shawkan, released after spending over 5 years in prison

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) hails today’s release of Mahmoud Abou Zeid, the Egyptian photojournalist also known as Shawkan, after more than five and a half years in prison, but deplores that the fact that he is still only half free because he is supposed to spend 12 out of every 24 hours in a police station for the next five years.

He was released at dawn today but is due to remain under strict judicial control for five years, spending part of his days and all of his nights, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., in a police cell. An appeal is under way which, if approved, could free him from the obligation to spend every night at a police station.

“Shawkan must now recover his complete freedom, not just 12 hours a day,” said Sophie Anmuth, the head of RSF’s Middle East desk. “A first battle has been won and we thank all those who joined in our efforts to get him freed. The campaign will continue as before, not just during Shawkan’s appeal but also to press for the release of the more than 30 other journalists detained in Egypt because of their work.”

After being held arbitrarily for more than two and a half years, Shawkan was put on trial with around 700 other defendants in December 2016. When the trial finally concluded in September 2018 with Shawkan receiving a five-year jail term, he should have been freed at once because he had already spent more than five years in detention.

Instead, for Kafkaesque reasons that are common in Egypt, he had to spend another six months in prison, and then another two weeks in a police station before finally being able to go home today.

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